DaVinci Resolve might very well be the best free video editing software out there, but if you only go with the free version, you are definitely missing out on some really amazing features. When I first decided to give DaVinci Resolve a try, it was so obvious to me to upgrade that I only use the free version for three days before pulling out my wallet and I have never looked back. So I'm gonna share with you some of the standout features that I use on a regular basis, and I feel like now I couldn't live without. And if you get to the end of this video and think, you know what, I don't actually need any of that, then you can probably just save yourself some money and stick with the free version instead. So, secure the cup and let's get into it. (upbeat music) The first thing that pulled me towards the paid version of DaVinci Resolve was the ability to edit 10-bit footage. This was huge for me when I first got the program because I wanted to be able to use my camera's 10-bit recording options. Now, more recently, I've heard some debate about this claiming that some 10-bit files will open fine in the free version, but my experience is that you need to have Resolve Studio, which is what they call the paid version, to guarantee all of those files to work for sure. And speaking of files that you can and can't use, DaVinci Resolve Studio can handle up to 120 frames per second and up to 32K resolution. Now, am I working in 32K at any point? Absolutely not, but I do dabble in 8K every once in a while and I definitely shoot 4K 120 frames per second here and there as well. The free version will handle 4K video up to 60 frames per second, which should do fine for a lot of the people who are using it. One of the more recent updates to DaVinci Resolve Studio is the transcription and transcription editing feature. This allows me to take long, rambling shots of me talking, transcribe the audio from them, and then automatically cut all the silent bits out. After that, I can even get a rough edit done right from the transcript instead of having to scroll through and watch all of the video footage. Waiting for me to get the right take can be kind of painful sometimes. Is the transcription editing process perfect? No. Has it saved me a ton of time by making that first pass at the edit way quicker? Yes. Similarly to the transcription feature, DaVinci Resolve Studio can also create automatic subtitles. I use this like crazy on my short form videos because I like to have captions on the screen in case people are watching without sound. Once I have my edit done, I'll create subtitles, select the settings that I want, and apply my custom default style, and I'm done in no time. I can easily fix any transcription issues that I run into and customize individual captions if I want as well. The next feature blows my mind so much that I actually made an entire video all about it, and that is the voice isolation. If you're filming in a noisy environment and you want to hear the voice better by removing traffic, wind, music, or pretty much anything from the background, the voice isolation effect is magic. On top of that, it's absolutely dead simple to use. You just turn it on, and then you can dial in the amount to how much isolation you want. This has gotten me out of a jam so many times where my audio didn't turn out how I wanted it in the recording process. And speaking of magic, we also have the magic mask effect, which works both in the color page and the fusion page. This is a quick and easy way to create masks of people or objects so that you can do things like adding text behind someone, replacing a background, or even having cloned subjects in a scene. And while it isn't necessarily going to give you Hollywood green screen results every time, it does a really decent job, and it takes barely any time or effort to do. Noise reduction is one of the main features that got me to upgrade to the studio version back when it was version 16. And now that we're on version 18, it's still awesome to have. There are a handful of third-party noise reduction plugins out there that you can buy for whatever editing software you use, but having it built right into the software, included in the price, especially when it's this powerful, is wonderful. The warning here is that this can be a very CPU and GPU intensive effect to use, and definitely tends to slow things down. But I still find myself reaching for it reasonably regularly to fix my noise problems. For those of you who are multi-platform creators or who have clients that want their deliverables both in horizontal and vertical versions, you will love Smart Reframe. Let's say that we shot a video in horizontal and we wanna make a vertical version of it. Place it on a vertical timeline, zoom in enough to cover that frame, and then enable Smart Reframe, and DaVinci Resolve will automatically keyframe the clip so that it follows the subject, keeping them in the center. Again, it's dead simple, and in my experience, it gives pretty decent results. And since it's just creating keyframes, you can always tweak it as you need. Another feature that I know a lot of people commonly use third-party plugins for is creating smooth slow motion from clips that weren't necessarily shot in higher frame rates. But in DaVinci Resolve Studio, we've got something called Speed Warp, and it has incredible results slowing down footage. All you have to do is choose Optical Flow for the clip retime process and Speed Warp for the motion estimation type, and it looks so much smoother than other types of slowed down footage. This is another one of those things that can really bog down your computer though, so you may want to render your clip after getting the speed set how you want it. There are a ton of great effects that you can use for color grading functions in DaVinci Resolve Studio, and lately, I've heard a lot of people talking about the Relight effect where you can try to relight a scene, and while that is great, one that I've found coming in handy more often for me is actually the Face Refinement tool. If you add this in your color grading workflow and hit Analyze, it'll find and track the face, and then you can adjust things like the skin smoothing, eye sharpness, try to move shine from the face or bags under the eyes. That being said, it is super easy to go overboard with this and have it look bad, but if it's used gently, it can be a really great way to make a subject pop a bit more without too much manual fiddling around. The next one is a bit more of a category, more so than a single feature, but DaVinci Resolve Studio offers remote viewing and color grading features, as well as cloud collaboration too. Things like being able to remotely view my timeline from my iPhone so I can check how it looks before exporting or remote grading if you have someone else color grading your project, and then full cloud collaboration, which allows multiple users to be working on the same project at once. They can be super handy if you have a remote editor, but you still wanna work on it a bit for yourself as well. These features can be super handy and are well worth looking into, especially if you work with a team. And one of the most mind-boggling things that I still have trouble believing is that as of right now, DaVinci Resolve Studio is still a one-time purchase with unlimited upgrades for new versions. No subscription, no paying for updates. I've had DaVinci Resolve Studio since it was version 16, and I'm still getting all the major updates for free. I have no idea how sustainable that is for their business or how long it'll go on for, but it's a really nice thing to have it while it lasts. Now, if you're just switching over to DaVinci Resolve from another editing software, or maybe you're getting into it as your first one, you definitely wanna check out my DaVinci Resolve 101 video to get a leg up and begin your journey. Beyond that, make sure that you subscribe and hit the bell notification so you don't miss out on future Resolve tutorials as well as other videos. And leave a comment down below if you wanna see me cover anything specific in DaVinci Resolve. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
